published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Wen Wen. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-147). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Contents --- p.v / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.15 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Theoretical Framework and Method of Decomposition --- p.39 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- Data --- p.57 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Estimation Results --- p.87 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Conclusion --- p.132 / Appendix --- p.138 / References --- p.142

Woo Yan-yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / List of Tables --- p.v / List of Appendices --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review / Chapter 2.1 --- The Determinants of Child Health --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Determinants of Child Educational Achievement --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Empirical Strategy / Chapter 3.1 --- Model of Child Health --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2 --- Model of Child Educational Achievement --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Data --- p.23 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Empirical Results for the Determinants of Child Health / Chapter 5.1 --- OLS Regressions --- p.26 / Chapter 5.2 --- Conclusion --- p.30 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Empirical Results for the Determinants of Child Educational Achievement / Chapter 6.1 --- OLS Regressions --- p.32 / Chapter 6.2 --- 2SLS Regressions --- p.35 / Chapter 6.3 --- Robustness Checks --- p.38 / Chapter 6.4 --- Conclusion --- p.42 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Conclusion --- p.42 / Tables --- p.44 / Appendices --- p.58 / References --- p.61

While much is known about the achievement of high ability students, much less research has focused on their lower ability peers. In addition, although academic self-concept, locus of control and learning approaches have been demonstrated to be important personal variables that influence learning outcomes, less effort has been made to integrate these variables simultaneously to understand the complexity of low-achievement. The present research aimed to not only identify key causes of the low-achievement of academically disadvantaged students, but also provide appropriate and productive enhancement approaches to foster low-achieving students’ school success by conducting a pioneering longitudinal experimental study particularly in mainland China. The participants were low-achieving junior secondary students who had recently enrolled in Secondary Vocational Education (SVE) in mainland China (total N = 724). It was found that compared with normal- and high-achieving students in mainstream secondary education, students in SVE were characterized with less achieving motives, less internal-oriented control beliefs and particularly lower academic self-concepts. In addition, the academic self-concept of SVE students was found to be the most significant predictor of their academic achievement (p＜ .001) compared with achieving approach (p＜ .05) and locus of control (p＞ .05). These findings, in light of the 3P learning model, revealed the likely major role of academic self-concept in affecting academic achievement among adolescent students in SVE. In particular, Study 2, a comparative study, confirmed that vocational students had the lowest English self-concept of the groups studied. Hence, the focus of Study 3 (a longitudinal intervention) was on English self-concept. By incorporating recent advances in Western feedback enhancement approaches and the construct-validity approach to fully explore the intervention effects, Study 3 demonstrated that the researcher-administered treatments (performance feedback and combined feedback) in natural classroom settings successfully enhanced participants’ English self-concept, the targeted facet. Importantly, both the competence and affect components within the English self-concept of targeted students also gained statistically significant improvements from the two feedback treatments, compared with those of students who received no particular treatment. An interesting finding was that the two feedback treatments appeared similarly significant in changing the competence component of English self-concept. However, the internally-focused performance feedback was less effective in changing the affect component of English self-concept compared with the combined feedback. Non-significant transfer effects were found on untargeted facets of academic self-concept among participants receiving only the performance feedback. A slightly significant transfer effect was found on Chinese self-concept (one control facet) among participants receiving the combined feedback, indicating the power of the combined feedback to influence a facet that is closely related to the targeted facet. The present findings provided important cross-cultural empirical evidence to support sound within-network validity of the feedback intervention in a vocational setting. Impressively, the English achievements of students in both experimental classes also gained statistically significant improvements. Based on key research designs of the present intervention, future implications of the two feedback treatments to cultivate positive academic self-beliefs and enhance learning among vocational and non-vocational secondary school students are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

As one of the most influential constructs in educational psychology, academic motivation represents individuals’ drives and energies to learn; as an emerging construct attracting increasing interest, engagement manifests individuals’ drives and energies, such as the use of self-regulation strategies. However, little existing research simultaneously considers these two groups of constructs within one framework, or takes their antecedents and outcomes into account, especially in regards to Chinese university students. The present study attempts to systematically study motivation and engagement on the basis of social-cognitive motivation theory and achievement orientation theory as a means of unifying substantive and empirical claims. To accomplish these purposes, two studies, each with two parts, have been conducted with Chinese university students as participants. In Study One, Part One explores the factor structure of several instruments – including the Motivation and Engagement Scales-University/College (MES-UC), the Goal Orientation and Learning Strategies Survey (GOALS-S), the Scale of Institution Integration (SII) and the Academic Satisfaction Questionnaire (ASQ) – in half the sample (426 cases). Cross-validation with the other half of the sample is then undertaken (423 cases). Part Two investigates a process model, which includes student multiple motivational beliefs, engagement and educational outcomes through path analysis. The results suggest that students’ work avoidance goal predicts their academic dissatisfaction directly and indirectly via maladaptive engagement; their social concern goal indirectly predicts intellectual development via adaptive engagement; their social approval goal directly influences achievement; and student engagement mediates the impacts of other motivational beliefs on their academic dissatisfaction, intellectual development and achievement. Furthermore, social concern, social approval, social status goals and work avoidance goals are significantly related to motivation and engagement. 　　In Study Two, Part One cross-validates the MES-UC instrument in a new independent sample (836 cases) of Chinese university students. Other instruments including the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey (PALS) are also validated. Part Two investigates a process model, which includes classroom goal structure, motivational beliefs, engagement and achievement through path analysis. The results find that the classroom mastery goal structure predicts adaptive and maladaptive engagement via adaptive motivation, and the classroom performance-avoidance goal structure affects maladaptive engagement via personal performance-approach goal orientation and maladaptive motivation In summary, by considering the classroom goal structure as a contextual antecedent and a variety of motivational beliefs as individual antecedents, as well as achievement-related constructs as outcomes, the thesis finds the mediation effect of motivational beliefs between classroom goal structure and student engagement, as well as the mediation effect of engagement between motivational beliefs and achievement-related outcomes. The thesis also summarizes the main contributions, and implications, noting the limitations and pointing out some directions for future research in the field of student motivation and engagement. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism